Bangladesh News

Delivery of goods from the premier seaport Chittagong is going to resume today on a limited scale as 14-party coalition relaxed its blockade on rail, road and waterways in Chittagong.
According to sources, the blockading political coalition will allow the goods laden trucks to move from the port to Chittagong city but will continue the blockade on the highways connecting the port city with the capital and other parts of the country.

Chittagong City Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury addressing a rally at Lal Dighi Maidan yesterday afternoon asked his followers to allow transporting of goods up to Chittagong city. But no transport will be allowed to leave or enter the city, he said.

He relaxed the blockade for three days to clear baby foods and perishable items which have been stockpiling in the port yard, according to sources.

The city mayor also went around the port area several times last night with a convoy of trucks carrying blockade supporters. They chanted slogans announcing continuation of the blockade, according to sources.

Dock workers, however, are determined to continue the blockade on the Chittagong Container Terminal (CCT) demanding cancellation of an agreement signed with a private company.

CCT remained paralysed since November 12, due to the dock workers’ opposition to leasing out the operation of sophisticated gantry crane to the private company.

The dock workers said the blockade will continue until the agreement is cancelled. They said the agreement should be cancelled as the company Saif Powertec Limited failed to accelerate handling of containers using the gantry cranes.

The private company handles 10-12 containers per hour although it was awarded the job for accelerating the speed and to handle at least 25 containers per hour, said a leader of the dock workers.

Meanwhile, the port became almost inactive due to the ongoing blockade.

Handling of goods continued on a limited scale yesterday but no goods were delivered. Two ships left the port and two other arrived at the jetty, according to sources.

Over 70 vessels are waiting at the jetty and at the outer anchorage for loading and unloading. Out of those, 26 are container carriers while the rest are general cargo carriers.

The situation at the port is very bad as discharging of goods at the outer anchorage was also slowed down as those goods could not be delivered from the city.

The port is also overburdened with a huge stockpile of containers in the yard. Around 18,000 containers are stockpiled in the container yard.

Allowing delivery of goods up to Chittagong city will not help much to ease the congestion as 90 percent of the cargoes are Dhaka bound.

Ship owners and shipping agents are disappointed with the continuous blockade on the port. Mainline operators (MLOs) might take an unfavourable decision regarding Chittagong port if the situation does not improve immediately, said Captain Shah Alam, managing director of Vega Marine Shipping Agent.

He said two of his company’s ships are waiting at the port for more than 12 days and another one is scheduled to arrive on November 24.

Alam said the shipping agents are also annoyed about the existing deadlock at CCT centring the dispute over operating the gantry cranes.

“Why should we suffer for the dispute between port workers and private companies?” he asked adding that the port is responsible for handling goods and they do not care how and through whom it handles the cargo. “We just want the containers handled quickly,” he said.

Alam observed that if the mainline operators take a negative decision that will be bad for the country’s economy.

Although the MLOs have yet to take any decision in this regard, they are very likely to come up with tough retaliatory actions within a couple of days because they suffered a huge loss due to the work stoppage at the port.

Cargoes were handled at Mongla port also on a limited scale yesterday.

Activities at all land ports, including Benapole, however remained suspended stranding hundreds of trucks on both sides of the border. An immense amount of perishable goods on the trucks are rotting, according to sources.